The present invention relates to electronic communication systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a communication network system that utilizes additional network connections when necessary to increase bandwidth.
Many networks exist to carry data having various bandwidth requirements. One such network is a global internetwork of networks known as the “Internet”. In the early days of networking, data was usually in the form of text and small data sets. The transfer of large, megabyte data sets was known, but typically such large data sets were few and far between and their recipient was content with receiving the data set over a long period of time if the network bandwidth was such that the transmission would take a long period of time.
In the current environment, with the explosion in popularity of networking for entertainment, commerce and other new uses (as well as the old uses), many users expect to get large bandwidth data sets and they expect to get it in real-time, or near real-time.
Many network architectures employ dedicated connections between a transmitting center herein also referred to as a local center and multiple receiving locations which may often be end users. This is the case for instance with a classic DSL network architecture. Often the receiving locations are also connected with one another via another network that is shared by all or many of the receiving locations. Examples of such shared network connections would be cable wiring connecting homes in a neighborhood or a shared wireless network among homes in a neighborhood. The dedicated connections between the local center and receiving locations are often bandwidth constrained and the ability to increase data throughput into a receiving location beyond what the dedicated link can support is often desirable. This is what the present invention addresses.